State of Heavies

Curious what everyone's thoughts are on heavies on all sides. I'm finding it hard to justify the latest rounds of tweaks to their main gun profiles. Heavies seem like meta wipe machines that become incredibly difficult to deal with and almost never worth the investment it takes to counter them.

Curious what everyone's thoughts are on heavies on all sides. I'm finding it hard to justify the latest rounds of tweaks to their main gun profiles. Heavies seem like meta wipe machines that become incredibly difficult to deal with and almost never worth the investment it takes to counter them.

They are fine. Before the patch i was afraid of penals with satchels and regular infantry. A 230-270fuel investment should not be afraid of a unit like Penals, PSchreck Pgrens or Piat Engineers.

The balance team wanted to make them more reliable but less able to randomly wipe. They didn't achieve this at all, now they wipe even more while still being very RNG depended. It's still very hit or miss especially with the KT.

Locking them behind T4 was the right choice. But the CP requirements need to go up 2 CP. Right now they arrive too early.

The IS2 has too much armour, it needs to go down to around 330 IMO. Right now it's too hard to penetrate even for Tigers, Panthers and Kingtigers. JP4 is basically useless against it unless you have good RNG.

I think the heavy tank AOE profiles need to be slightly reduced for all heavies apart from the KT, which is still not that great overall IMO.

OKW meta is so boring now because Grand Offensive is the only viable doctrine in 1v1 and 2v2. Then again all their other doctrines are mediocre so it's not just a Grand Offensive problem. And even Grand Offensive is just good because of the Tiger.

Before the patch i was afraid of penals with satchels and regular infantry. A 230-270fuel investment should not be afraid of a unit like Penals, PSchreck Pgrens or Piat Engineers.

This doesn't make any sense. In which alternate reality were heavy tanks afraid of Piats, PTRS and Shrecks? And on top of that they didn't increase the HP/armour on any heavy tank either so this makes even less sense. Only exception is the Pershing but it traded armour for an extra 160 HP so it didn't get much more durable either.

The balance team wanted to make them more reliable but less able to randomly wipe. They didn't achieve this at all, now they wipe even more while still being very RNG depended. It's still very hit or miss especially with the KT.

They made a change that on paper appears to do more consistent damage over a wider area but kill less in a single shot. It's also a change that in practice in the end game of some VP slog usually ends up blowing away entire veteran squads that have taken middling damage from any of the other sources across the yellow covered late-game hell-scape.

That said I think the bigger issue is their increased accessibility, ironically the very objective of the patch, ditching 3 CP levels and (albeit rightfully) putting them behind tech.

The balance team wanted to make them more reliable but less able to randomly wipe. They didn't achieve this at all, now they wipe even more while still being very RNG depended. It's still very hit or miss especially with the KT.

Locking them behind T4 was the right choice. But the CP requirements need to go up 2 CP. Right now they arrive too early.

The IS2 has too much armour, it needs to go down to around 330 IMO. Right now it's too hard to penetrate even for Tigers, Panthers and Kingtigers. JP4 is basically useless against it unless you have good RNG.

I think the heavy tank AOE profiles need to be slightly reduced for all heavies apart from the KT, which is still not that great overall IMO.

OKW meta is so boring now because Grand Offensive is the only viable doctrine in 1v1 and 2v2. Then again all their other doctrines are mediocre so it's not just a Grand Offensive problem. And even Grand Offensive is just good because of the Tiger.

Those were my thoughts. I cannot tell you how many games I've had a tiger 2 shot full health squads. Its gotten to the point where I retreat infantry as soon as I see or hear the tiger and still get wiped on retreat.

They're in a bit of a better place than before, but still need adjustments. I would make the following changes to all heavy and 'doc-premium-medium' tanks; i.e. Tiger, Ele, KT, JT, IS-2, KV-series, ISU-152, Pershing, Churchill-series, and Comet.

I'd also like to see larger changes made to the ST, AVRE and ISU-152. For the first two, their "shells" really need to either fire on a MUCH higher arc, or be set to ignore terrain (but not buildings). They're simply unusable in late-game, since they always hit craters and such, resulting in zero damage.

For the ISU-152, something really needs to be done to its ability to 'snipe' entire squads at extreme ranges. This is especially a problem for OST, since they lack any sort of non-doc ~60 range TD to even begin to counter it at range, as well as being based almost entirely around 4-man squads (which are very vulnerable to 1-shots). My suggestion would be either:

Drastically reduce AoE radius

OR set a "max models to damage" limit, which I believe mines use right now

OR give it an AP / HE toggle (similar to the USF Sherman), where AP has nearly zero AoE, and HE has drastically reduced range (around 50).

The 3rd option has the added bonus of being somewhat historically accurate, since the ISU-152 did have both AP and HE shells

Opinions reflect 2v2 and 4v4
I often edit my posts several times after posting

They're in a bit of a better place than before, but still need adjustments. I would make the following changes to all heavy and 'doc-premium-medium' tanks; i.e. Tiger, Ele, KT, JT, IS-2, KV-series, ISU-152, Pershing, Churchill-series, and Comet.

With the "no range bonuses" change, it means that no heavy tanks (except heavy TDs) would be able to exceed 45 range. The STuG currently (iirc) has 50 range, so it would always out-range the heavies by a slight amount - there would be no need for them to have even more range. Not to mention, 60 range STuGs would be incredibly powerful due to their cost efficiency and early arrival.

Opinions reflect 2v2 and 4v4
I often edit my posts several times after posting

quote by katitof,sander, Hannibal,lago and 1 other mods form this forum in the old stug thread
" a 5 range advantage is irrelevant and not enough"
this was me asking to rework stug to have less dps but 5 more range and that was the response

quote by katitof,sander, Hannibal,lago and 1 other mods form this forum in the old stug thread
" a 5 range advantage is irrelevant and not enough"
this was me asking to rework stug to have less dps but 5 more range and that was the response

as always here we don't have double standards

so i u want just reduce the bonus of the is 2 to 45 at max

60 range for the STuG would be +10, though, not +5?

The range and vet-range changes would affect much more than the IS-2. Currently it starts at 40 range (vet 0), so it would actually gain +5 there, but would indeed lose out on its vet2 range bonuses. However, the Tigers (OST/OKW) would also lose out on their vet2 range bonuses.

Opinions reflect 2v2 and 4v4
I often edit my posts several times after posting

The range and vet-range changes would affect much more than the IS-2. Currently it starts at 40 range (vet 0), so it would actually gain +5 there, but would indeed lose out on its vet2 range bonuses. However, the Tigers (OST/OKW) would also lose out on their vet2 range bonuses.

taht's my point ost is once again left in the dust allied td get a 15 range advantage to ost TD while the stug gets a 5 range advantage to is 2

IS2 doesn't need 45 nor 50 range to operate. The unit is doing more than fine at vet 0/1.
Once it reaches vet 2 it means it nullifies any non doctrinal TD for OH.

Guess which commander was the most common in the last tournament against OH.
On the contrary, against OKW Armored assault wasn't used as much.

Tiger/KT can be left at 45 cause the 3 main TDs for allied factions all have 60 range.

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And if you weren't, you were playing without skill,
And if you were, it's not fun to play that way,
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